Netflix Is Going to Rule TV After All

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Netflix Is Going to Rule TV After All

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Image: Paul Drinkwater/AP

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings could barely contain himself. On Wednesday, after reporting another stellar financial quarter for the company – 2.3 million new subscribers, nearly $50 million in profits – the man who destroyed the Blockbuster empire started taunting his latest nemesis: HBO.

When asked about HBO co-president Richard Plepler claiming that the company wasn't hurt by people sharing their passwords for HBO Go, its streaming video app, Hastings pretended to give out Plepler's personal login credentials: "It's plepler@hbo.com," Hastings said, "and his password is netflixbitch."

Pretty cocky for the guy who invented Qwikster. But his swagger has substance behind it. For a company that was on the death-watch list just a few years ago, Netflix has engineered one of the most remarkable corporate turnarounds in recent memory. Rising from the depths of a fading DVD-by-mail business, Hastings and company have transcended the movie rental market. Now they're taking on television, both the industry and the medium itself. And in a way, Netflix has already won there, too.

>Rising from the depths of a fading DVD-by-mail business, Netflix has transcended the movie rental market to take on television itself.

When Robin Wright accepted her Golden Globe earlier this month for her stunning turn in the Netflix political drama House of Cards, it was kind of a weird moment. Back in the days when the only thing Netflix meant was a red envelope in the mailbox, the idea that the company would win a Golden Globe just wouldn't have made sense. Like Blockbuster, Netflix was in the content delivery business, not the content creation business.

But as Wright took to the stage, Hastings must have felt a surge of satisfaction, and we're guessing his shareholders did too, especially after seeing the company's stock price quadruple over the past year. Netflix shares have always been volatile, especially around earnings time, with manic swings in either direction depending on the good news or the bad. But the overall upward surge – which tops even that of streaming video rival Amazon – is hard to dismiss as mere froth.

Whatever the other underlying reasons for investor optimism, it's impossible to ignore that the rise of Netflix has come at the same time the company launched some of the most ambitious shows in the entertainment business.

Though they look and feel like what you'd see on TV, calling Netflix's productions "television" doesn't really make sense, even if they were nominated for Emmys. I, for one, watched all of House of Cards and Orange Is the New Black on my iPad. Yes, it's possible to funnel Netflix to an actual TV via any number of devices, and soon, that might even include your cable box. But the true threat to HBO and the cable business model is that NetFlix can transcend the television itself, offering you shows on all your devices. HBO has been slow to make its HBO Go app available to viewers who don't subscribe to its television channel, and on the whole, the cable TV industry still depends on people putting their butts on couches in front of giant flatscreens.

Users, Not Just Viewers

Meanwhile, Netflix charges eight bucks a month to watch anything, anytime, anywhere, painlessly. Until recently, NetFlix still seemed like a supplement to the rest of TV, especially given its sometimes spotty offerings. But its original content upended that calculus, especially because it showed a willingness and ability to make shows whose quality rivaled anything on cable.

What's more, Netflix isn't hamstrung by anything as retro as seasons or time slots. No matter how good their shows are, the core business of HBO or Showtime or AMC is limited by how much programming they can fit into a 168-hour week. But Netflix can make as many or as few shows as it likes and put them up any time of year.

Netflix is also willing to release an entire season of shows at one time. Despite his predilection for Jesse Pinkman-esque name-calling, Reed Hastings' most powerful taunt to traditional television has been Netflix's full embrace of binge-watching. Despite the rise of on-demand and DVRs, the traditional television business still depends on dictating to viewers when they should sit down and watch. By putting all the control in the hands of its now 44 million users, Netflix has shown that it understands what people want and is leading its rivals in delivering.

That puts Netflix in control of television's future, from how we watch to how much we pay. People may still pay for HBO to watch Game of Thrones and spring for cable to watch sports. But in the TV world, Netflix red is the new black.